Readers Share Their New York Subway Stories

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Looking south on the 4 line in the Bronx.CreditDamon Winter/The New York Times

By Alice Yin

Jan. 11, 2018

Last week’s cover story is an ode to the ultimate conversation starter among New Yorkers: the subway. As part of The Times’s series on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s systemwide failures, Jonathan Mahler argued that for all its faults the subway represents the best of New York. It saved the city once and could save it again.

Mahler went underground with M.T.A. workers to inspect the crumbling infrastructure and above ground to learn what could be done to fix it. The case for the subway, he concluded, is the case for New York City itself. The subway made it “a place where anything was possible.”

We asked readers to share anecdotes about how the subway shaped their own relationships with the city. Their stories include larger-than-life characters, events just strange enough to happen only in New York and memories of how the subway got them through hard times. A selection of responses, edited for length and clarity, follows.

A Place to Form Lifelong Bonds

For many New Yorkers, the subway served as the backdrop to a burgeoning relationship.

In the 1950s, when my girlfriend (and wife-to-be) and I were dating, we traveled by subway to each other’s houses. She was a Bronx girl; I was a Brooklyn boy. The trains at that time allowed us to stand in the first car and look out the window of the door. My stop was Saratoga Avenue on the New Lots-bound train. Hers was Burke Avenue on the 241st Street-bound train. The trip took one and a half hours. We used the time to play subway baseball, using the various light color patterns for home runs, hits and outs. The games were full of fun. There were times when more than 100 runs were scored. I should also note that she was a Yankees fan and I was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan. Fred Kogan, Park Slope, Brooklyn

I have ridden the A train from 175th Street in Washington Heights since before I was born. One day during my second semester of college, I decided to ride the train with my mom. We then started regularly taking the train together, usually the local C train at 168th Street, its first and last stop. We got a rush from jumping off the crowded A train and into the empty C train, heading straight for the double seats at the end of the car. There we proceeded to slyly eat our breakfast together — coffee and a cheese-filled roll from the bakery. She started slowly, giving me advice about life and money but never about love (“It’s useless,” she would say). Then she began telling me about her life in the Dominican Republic, how scared she was when she first arrived in this country. She told me stories she had never told me before, stories you would tell a friend.

For four years, I looked forward to riding the train every morning, because delays and train traffic gave me more time to get to know my mother. I graduated from college four years ago; it was a dream come true for my mom. Now my commute is at best bearable if I get a seat on the train, but I’ll always be thankful for the two-seaters on the C trains that introduced me to my mom. Kio Herrera, Washington Heights, Manhattan

I love the New York subway system. I had a rough year of unemployment and found solace in the subway tunnels. With my monthly pass, I had access to a diversity of neighborhoods and culture, leading me to the end of all the lines. I discovered historical landmarks and community activities in the Bronx, the breathtaking views of Inwood, the magic of the 1964 World’s Fair in Queens and the cultural roots deep in Brooklyn.

Even the advertisements become part of the New York culture. The best friend I have made in the city sprang from a common interest and amusement over the “If you see something, say something” campaign. It became a challenge to find the cars with our favorite vigilantes. This fun is amplified with the holiday vintage cars in December or at the Transit Museum, where you can see the classic “Subway Sun” ads more classily conveying, “Dude, stop the spread.” Sharon Kapitula, Kips Bay, Manhattan

Hidden Gems

The subway often surprises New Yorkers with its never-ending pockets of entertainment.

I was having a stressful day at work: long hours, lots of emails, short deadlines. On the way home, on the F train headed to the Lower East Side, I couldn’t stop thinking about work and was feeling anxious. A gentleman, who had to be in his late 20s or early 30s, got on the train and announced to everyone that he hoped we were all having a wonderful day. Of course, my first thought was, “Here we go.” Then he started singing and happened to have an amazing voice. While no one stared, you could tell the entire car was listening. He sang a soothing song, and for those few minutes, I legitimately felt my stress levels decrease drastically. The guy made my day and reminded me why I love this city. Christian Lopez, Lower East Side, Manhattan

My friends and I were waiting for the L, heading to some lame band party. We started talking to this super-nice outgoing woman in her 40s, who ended up giving us a bottle of berry Smirnoff she had customized for her friend’s birthday party (pajama party, her friend was an Aquarius). We are still friends on Facebook. At first we weren’t going to drink the vodka, but after our fake IDs struck out in Bushwick bodegas, we totally did. Paige, East Village, Manhattan

I lived in New York for five years, from 2003 to 2008, and I still have a subway memory that I think about all the time. It happened when I first moved to New York; I was just out of college and scared out of my mind to be in the city. The train ride took forever, so I would read. One day, I was reading “Naked,” by David Sedaris, and laughing hysterically out loud. Suddenly, the guy sitting right next to me started laughing out loud. I thought it was because of me, but then I looked at him and saw he was reading another David Sedaris book (“Me Talk Pretty One Day”)! I looked at his book, and he looked at mine, and we started laughing together. We didn’t talk or exchange numbers. We both went back to our respective books and enjoyed the ride on that sunny summer day. It was such a nice shared moment and probably one of my best memories from my time in New York. Effie K., Inwood and the Flatiron district, Manhattan, and now Paris

Where New Yorkers Look Out for One Another

Many readers remember a time when a stranger came to someone’s aid while on the subway.

One night after celebrating the return of friends from abroad, I caught the 4 train headed uptown from Brooklyn. In the car was an older woman, a middle-aged man, a young woman, a passed-out man and a few others. The passed-out man’s backpack was on the ground. We all looked at one another to see if he was O.K. Having some medical training, I went over and checked to see if he was breathing. He was, with a heavy odor of alcohol coming in waves off his breath. The young woman asked if he was going to be O.K. I said he was, and she smiled as I returned to my seat. As the doors opened at our next stop, she grabbed his backpack and sprinted away. The middle-aged man was off like lightning after her. The older woman jumped between a set of doors screaming, “Thief, thief!” I jumped between a set of doors as well, hoping to delay the train until the bag returned. Within minutes, the middle-aged man ran back into the car, bag in hand. I roused the passed-out man and showed him his returned bag and pointed out the man who returned it. He gave a bleary smile and passed out again. A thunderous round of applause came from the other passengers, and those of us who helped rode the rest of the way home with smiles. Kunal, Upper East Side, Manhattan

I was on the subway — the G, I think — and an older male stranger started talking to me, asking me increasingly personal questions. He was working around to asking for my number and making me visibly uncomfortable. It’s the type of encounter I’ve learned to selectively forget, and the only reason I still remember it is because of the middle-aged woman who, after watching from a few seats over, came over and asked, “Will you be O.K.?” before she exited at the next station. The look she gave me — a look that said, “I’m here to step in if you need me” — moved me in a way I didn’t expect, in this space where people usually keep to themselves and mind their own affairs. It was a moment that made me feel that perhaps this vast community of overworked strangers had my back after all. Tao Tao Holmes, Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn

We were stuck on the Q train in the tunnel between the Brooklyn Bridge and DeKalb Avenue. It was a long time without any information. A normal-looking man in a suit standing by the door started having a panic attack, basically freaking out. An older woman got out of her seat, went over to him and talked to him in a very calm and caring voice until the train finally started moving again. We applauded when the train doors opened at the station. He got out, and she stayed on. Random people asked her if she was a health care professional, but she was just a regular person who stepped up to help a stranger. It was a beautiful moment in an otherwise miserable commute. Betty, Brooklyn

A Shared Sense of History

Finally, many New Yorkers remember the subway being a place of support during moments of consequence.

The day after the 2016 presidential election, I cried with other subway riders — strangers — on the way to work. Soon after, people began putting up multicolored Post-it notes on the walls of one the walking tunnels at the 14th Street-Sixth Avenue stop. The messages, scrawled in Sharpie, ran the gamut — some despairing, most hopeful, a few humorous. It sounds dramatic, but that feeling of unity with so many strangers is one of the most powerful things I’ve ever experienced. The subway levels the playing field and, quite literally, brings the city closer together every single day. Ashley Long, Greenwich Village, Manhattan

Late in the day on Sept. 11, 2001, the subways reopened, and I could return home to the Upper East Side. As I boarded the train, I saw a woman in a hijab, a head scarf. I remember marveling at the courage and composure it took, on that day, to be visibly Muslim. But I was more impressed that not only did no one say an angry or intemperate word to her, but also no one even glanced crossly in her direction. The subway is not just an economic engine, a means of mobility, but an agent for tolerance and understanding, as neighborhoods of different hues and accents are fused together. There is too little of that in America today. Haroon Moghul, the Bronx

Alice Yin is an intern for the magazine.

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